


Story cover: For I Believe in Harbors at the End

by Teaotter



Category: The Incredible Hulk (TV)
Genre: Cover Art, Fanart, M/M, hosted at imgur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 16:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 0
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cover art for the story:</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Jack McGee, reluctant tabloid reporter, tracked the Hulk for years; meeting amnesiac John Doe might be a lead to the green monster. John thinks Jack looks familiar, but John's face is bandaged, so Jack can't identify him. Hoping to stir John's memories, Jack charters a plane to LA, to see a specialist in amnesia. When the plane crashes into dangerous wilderness, though, it's the start of a different relationship between the two men until Jack witnesses John Doe transforming into the Hulk to save Jack. </em></p><p> </p><p>  <em>Now, he's even more intrigued with capturing the Hulk. But then John calls him one day, desperate. If Jack helps the man he'd been lovers with on that mountain, maybe John will finally give up the secret of his real identity to Jack. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Story cover: For I Believe in Harbors at the End

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [For I Believe in Harbors at the End](https://archiveofourown.org/works/750838) by [laurie_ky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurie_ky/pseuds/laurie_ky). 



**Author's Note:**

> This is an older fandom, and has relatively few screencaps available to work with. So I started there, trying to find caps that had a similar feeling to the story. I started with the picture of David hitchhiking (which makes up the top of the book cover). I melded it with a photograph of the Mojave phone booth, fiddling with the landscape and the sky until I could get them together in a ratio I liked.
> 
> I originally had the phone booth upside down and the hitchhiking picture right-side up. But I decided that I wanted to play more with the telephone -- it's the main connection between David and Jack for most of the story, and I wanted to play with the idea that it was the "real" world and the other was the dream.
> 
> After which, I finally realized that I'd been thinking of this cover from David's perspective, and I needed to be thinking about it from Jack's. He's the narrator, after all, and for him, the phone conversations *are* more real than the other. He knows that David is out there, but he has to piece it together in his imagination. So I needed to put Jack's picture on the cover, too.
> 
> But then it was uneven, with the figure of David upside down, so I added a second picture of David, right-side up to match Jack. But that screwed up the proportions on the picture, so I went looking for a way to bridge them -- and found the phone dial. Perfect! The phone is their connection, slightly insubstantial, but it's what they have.
> 
> I took out a few clouds from the sky to make everything cleaner, and softened all the edges.
> 
> And then I realized I needed a lot of space for the title. It's not that I'm a stranger to long titles, but they do make for bad afterthoughts to an image. I'd intended to leave a lot of empty space for it -- but then I'd gone and filled that empty space with photos and a phone dial.
> 
> Then I had the bright idea to curve it around the phone dial. This was *not* a bright idea, actually -- I loved it as soon as I tried it out, of course, but I had no idea how to curve text. So I looked up some tutorials, followed them -- and hated the way it looked. I ended up making each individual letter into a layer, spinning each layer individually, and moving each one into place. Except that I screwed up at one point and had to go back and re-do the whole thing. Twice.
> 
> It was worth it, though, for the added punch it gives the phone dial. But oh, what a pain in the butt it was!
> 
> Still, I am very proud of this, and I hope that it lures some of you to go read the story.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [For I Believe in Harbors at the End](https://archiveofourown.org/works/750838) by [laurie_ky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurie_ky/pseuds/laurie_ky)




End file.
